Life Goes On Read Free Page B

mixture of blue up top and white below, which could only mean that it would rain the whole day over London. Such a prospect made the present conversation unimportant, but I played up to his need for chit-chat. ‘I’ve no intention of not paying the extra, though it’s true that by the time the ticket collector returns, if he ever does get back from the sort of trip he’s gone on, we could be at Liverpool Street.’
    I stubbed my cigar out too violently on the window, and had to brush ash and sparks from my newly cleaned suit. I looked at the half-hunter gold watch in my waistcoat pocket, as if anxious about a business appointment in town. He was interested in seeing how I would manoeuvre myself out of the predicament, and because I was in a good mood I decided to fall in with his expectations as a way of discovering something about him. Most of all, it was as if I was a candidate for a job and he was testing my suitability.
    â€˜I intended paying up from the beginning, yet I needn’t if I don’t want to. As soon as I see him coming with the change for twenty quid I can nip smartly back into second class, and nobody will be any the wiser. It pays to hold off till the last minute, because you never know what’s going to turn up. It’s because it’s good exercise racking my brains for a way out, and probably as near to real life as I can get. In any case, suppose my briefcase above your head was full of explosives, and I thought somebody might be on the look-out for it. To divert suspicion, I’d cause a fuss about something insignificant, as a way of practising the theory of the indirect approach.’
    He had turned pale, in the lurid light caused by the darkening sky. ‘But what are you practising for?’
    Raindrops splashed the window. ‘Fun, as far as you are concerned. But you never know when the fun’s going to turn nasty, do you? Or serious, for that matter. And therein lies the danger for anybody else who happens to be present. I just don’t like a jumped-up, swivel-eyed prick like you trying to fuck me around, that’s all.’
    â€˜Seems like we’re going to become friends.’ He brought out a silver cigar case of real Havanas. I smoked Jamaicans which were just as good. He passed one across. ‘What sort of work do you do?’
    â€˜Work?’ I dropped the crushed tube to the floor, and scuffed it under the seat with my heel. ‘Work,’ I said, ‘is a habit which I gave up when I started living off my wife.’
    He smiled, not knowing whether to believe me. The only blemish in his otherwise well-bred presentation was that his teeth were rotten, though not too much for a forty-year-old who hadn’t yet got false ones, or too good for a perspicacious German not to recognise him for an Englishman. ‘What sort of work do you do?’
    â€˜I don’t think I could describe what I do as work,’ he said. ‘I’m a Royal Messenger, flitting not only between the Palace and the Foreign Office in my powder blue Mini-van, but occasionally using trains, and even planes, when engaged on overseas duties. I go from place to place as a courier.’
    â€˜I thought you were in something important. My name’s Michael Cullen, by the way.’
    He held out his manicured hand. ‘I was christened Eric Samuel Raymond, and my surname is Alport. Call me Eric. At the moment I’m just back from Sandringham.’
    I could only suppose that he had fallen arse backwards into that kind of an occupation, and yet I was convinced that he lied, and that if so he was more of an artist at it than I was – or used to be. He lied, right from the back of his throat, for he was no kind of Royal Messenger. I knew he had been in jail because the first thing people learn inside is how to lie. Learning how to become better criminals is only secondary. The lies they tell each other inside are picturesque. The lies they tell